Dedication Ceremony
Beecher Center for the Electronic Arts, Youngstown, Ohio
On display, Graham Nash, Selected Prints
Michael Hardesty, CandleBlower
Nam June Paik, Information Superhighway
Holography from the Johnathan Ross Collection
January 14, 2000

The Beecher Center for the Electronic Arts has been a long time coming,
and has finally opened after a long and turbulent gestation. A wing of
the Butler Institute of American Art, it is a partnership between the
Butler and Youngstown State University, and is intended as a
research/learning institution for the investigation of the interface
between art and scientific practice.

Much of the vision of uniting the arts and humanities with the sciences
and engineering disciplines under the roof of the Beecher Center was the
work of the late Nik Williams, consultant to YSU and the Butler. In
conversation, he related high hopes for creating a center that could
harness the area's expanding academic and technological resources to
explore the new media arts in a location that had little previous
exposure to these genres. In so doing, the Youngstown area would serve
as a fertile ground for new or different modes of inquiry in the
technological arts.

However, the Beecher has not been without its share of difficulties.
Over its conception and construction, there have been discussions
regarding the degree of involvement of Butler and YSU in its operation
as a wing of the Butler Institute, as well as delays in its
construction. However, these concerns seem to have been negotiated, as
the center's impressive technological infrastructure seems to have been
fully implemented by the time of the opening.

Internally, the building was designed for the implementation of
streaming HDTV and works utilizing distributed networking through an
infrastructure of copper and fiber optic connections throughout the
building, and a dedicated T3 line to the Internet. This ability to
stream high-definition video was showcased in the center's HDTV theatre,
which featured continuously running programs on Hopper and Jenkins.
Furthermore, this stream was also seen on large Fujitsu flat-screen
plasma display televisions around the ground floor, which made for
intriguing possibilities such as distributed interactive video
installations. Lastly, the Beecher's reference library also
incorporates a center for the study of the archival of electronic works
and streaming video workstations, which suggest the potential of the
center.

At the opening, the exhibits on display included works by Paik,
Hardesty, Nash, Adams, and holography from the collection of Johnathan
Ross. Paik's "Information Superhighway", is named from the attribution
that the artist first mentioned the phrase. Nevertheless, the display
is an impressive array of nearly a dozen works on loan from Cincinnati's
Carl Solway Gallery, except for the piece, Ars Electronica 95, which was
purchased by the Beecher. Most were pieces that kept with the 'Highway'
theme, but the most interesting was a piece that mixed video segments
from local television which was campaigning against Time/Warner's
elimination of a local news program from its coverage. Such content
makes a poignancy visible when juxtaposed against a backdrop of an
institutional setting that itself draws from institutional and corporate
alliances.

Graham Nash's monochrome Iris prints, located in the Novak Gallery, once
again prove his virtuosity in the area of digital imaging. His images
of rock music legends, as well as pieces such as skeletal self-portraits
put forth a valid critique of the place of an rock musician that has
made it through his forties and is obviously reflecting on his cultural
milieu. In terms of the changes that technology is creating in the
music industry and in the artistic genre, Nash creates convincing
commentaries upon his experiences, and has continued to do so in all the
years that I have seen the many shows of his prints.

Michael Hardesty's Candleblower is a one-room installation consisting of
a darkened space with a solitary candle burning in a very large mound of
congealed candle wax with a looping projection of his self-portrait,
attempting to blow the candle out. In addition, an LED message sign
which repeats the words, "on and on and on and on" just above the
blowing face of Hardesty, suggesting the unending loop of experience
that is this moment frozen in the gallery. To Hardesty, the
juxtaposition of 2- and 3D elements and their attempt for interaction
with one another speaks of a sort of 'leap of faith' that he places in
those experiences that he cannot easily deconstruct. Max (Kaufmann, of
RTMark) and I sat there, staring into the flame, asking ourselves what
statement could be made by simply blowing out the candle, and walking
out the door.

Johnathan Ross is recognized as one of the world's leading collectors of
holographic art, and his collection is a fine example of this. The
pieces that I saw pushed the limits of what I knew of the potential of
holography, as pieces hung in midair and films were bent over mirrors,
creating an even deeper dimensionality to the works. However, the
question that loomed in my mind had to do with the recent exhibition of
holograms by the Canton (Ohio) Museum of Art, an institution regionally
known for its catering to mass appeal. Holography is a genre with which
I am not as familiar as I would like to be, and so my main reaction is
that the body of works chosen were strong compositions, with some that
strove to break my preconceptions of the medium.

Arguably the most engaging of the works was Carol Adams' kinetic laser
and light show in the downstairs corridor of the Novak Gallery.
Numerous fabric scrims were hung from the ceiling, through which lasers
and xenon projectors shone through creating a light show of swirling
patterns and dancing figures that seemed oddly at home with Nash's
images. Also part of the installation was one of the usual theatrical
fog machines used to enhance the 'beam' effect, but the fog set off the
center's fire alarms, at which time I remarked that it was just part of
the installation! Adams' has been known at least regionally for her
work, which mixes neon, textile and other technological media, so for me
it was heartening to see her work included in the opening.
Nevertheless, I found myself blowing upon the scrims to create an
interactive element in the piece, which was telling in how my biases
were playing out in this exhibit.

Just before we were going to leave, we decided to find the basement and
see if there were any treasures hidden beneath the earth. In fact, when
I descended the staircase, I was pleased to see a small Silicon Graphics
workstation with a webcam perched atop it, which fed our image into a
fascinating little OpenGL program. It analyzed our video images as a 3d
topology, and them mapped that data to a small pod of GL-based 3D blue
whales that swam next to our video image. There was no documentation
for this piece, and it was interesting that I spent the most time
examining this work. Its nature of analyzing those descending the
staircase (a pun on Duchamp), as well as its location in the basement
spoke to me that Director Lou Zona is trying to take the traditionally
conservative area of Youngstown up to speed slowly.

The opening exhibition at the Beecher Center for the Electronic Arts
seemed to be a shakedown cruise designed to slowly indoctrinate a
typically conservative art audience and local dignitaries to genres not
previously shown in the area. Conspicuously absent were any Internet or
CD-based works, as well as any works incorporating any form of
interactivity. However, the more traditional curatorial stance for the
opening fell short of utilizing the center's full potential, and my
hopes are that future installations will begin to push the boundaries of
media, technological, and representational practices. I have much
optimism for the Beecher Center for the Electronic Arts, and hope that
its potential will be realized in the coming years.